Over the winter break, we spent some time with my extended family in the New York City suburbs. Of course, we visited when the temperatures were way below what real Floridians call acceptable.

And one frosty morning, somewhere around 10 degrees, I went looking for an unusual goose species that had been spotted in a park nearby. Predictably, I missed the goose but I did spend some time watching the winter residents, sparrows, juncos and turkeys actively foraging in the freezing weather. They were gathered near some bird feeders where a reliable meal could be had despite the three inches of snow on the ground.

Fast forward now to last week, when the video of alligators under glace was making the rounds. Two dramatically different approaches to dealing with winter weather. Since it’s been quite a few years since Florida had to deal with some really cold temperatures, I thought it might be fun to review different approaches that animals use to deal with winter.

First, let’s talk about the challenges posed by winter. There is the cold. Reptiles and insects, which can’t regulate their body temperature internally, have to worry about literally freezing to death if it gets too cold and the fluids in their bodies turn to ice. Some creatures battle this by producing a kind of antifreeze in their blood.

Second, there is dehydration. It’s really easy to lose water in a stiff, cold wind. And finally for mammals and birds it’s about gathering enough fuel: calories to keep our internal furnaces running and our body temperatures constant.

So the birds I saw that morning were using this last approach to survive winter, actively collecting enough calories each day to keep the home fires burning. They basically need to forage during daylight hours even in really cold weather. It helps that feathers are such great insulators.

Approach number two is to slow down the metabolic rates of your body to limit your caloric consumption. This is what true hibernators like bears, woodchucks and bats do in the winter. They put on as much fat as they can in the summer and then lower their body temperatures in the winter to burn as little of it as possible. It’s like lowering the thermostat on your mountain home when you go away on vacation.

Ectotherms such as reptiles and insects don’t really hibernate but their metabolic rates are dependent on the outside temperatures. They go into torpor in really cold weather. It’s like a kind of suspended animation. Florida reptiles and amphibians become active again if things warm up. That’s what happened to the “frozen gators.” If it reached 75 degrees tomorrow, they would be out basking. In really cold parts of the country, most reptiles brumate for the entire winter. That means they find dens deep in the ground and go into torpor for the entire cold season. Aquatic reptiles and amphibians have another strategy for dealing with winter. They remain active under the ice where by definition, it never freezes. How do they get oxygen? Through their butts.

Then there are what I call the “pack up your toys and go home” approaches. Many species, especially flying ones, just leave. Why stick around for a nasty winter when you can simply take a vacation in the tropics. Of course, the journey can be long and arduous, but for many species, especially insect eaters, this is the way to go.

And other species complete their life cycles in one year — and then overwinter in another form. For example, some insects die in the fall after laying their eggs. Their eggs lie dormant until the next spring when they hatch and start the whole process over.

And finally, there’s the tropical animal approach to winter. The one taken by invasive species like iguanas and Cuban Tree Frogs that now call Florida home. How do they deal with winter? They don’t. They fall out of trees and painlessly freeze to death. And that’s now a bad thing. We really don’t need them here.